Tubeless Tutorial

 This is not a tubeless tutorial.  On our Trek Lamar ride today two of the riders had flats.  As it turned out, both were riding tubeless tires.  Those of us who have yet to be enticed over to the new trend, learned a few things.  Doug is our most experienced guy and, by the way, had some nifty tools.  

The first flat, we found, had a hole in the tire.  The sealant should have fixed that.  Unfortunately, due to inexperience plus a broken hand that put her off the bike for an extended period of time, the sealant apparently had dried up.  Mostly, these need to be refreshed every three or four months.  And I read somewhere you need to spin the wheels like every week or less.  That is, don't let too long go without riding.  Doug first got out a little gizmo that looks like a big sewing needle and threaded some rubber-looking thread into it and attempted to push it into the hole.  The object is to get the "thread" off the needle and fill the hole.  I saw this one other time on a ride and it worked quite well.  Didn't this time.  So he went to plan B, got out a little squirt thing and squirted some sealant into the hole.  This worked well enough that he could get air in the tire sufficient to ride.  As it turned out, there was some more air added a little later, enough to get her to the abbreviated end of the ride.  We also learned that you shouldn't use co2 because it reacted poorly with the sealant.

The second flat was a slight slit in the sidewall.  The sealant doesn't do well, or at all, on sidewalls.  However, tubeless or not, you should always carry a spare tube, which he had.  Getting the tire off the rim took a little doing, because you have to do something (sorry I wasn't close enough) to the stem.  Getting the tire off took a bit of doing, mostly to keep the sealant from going everywhere.  That was done quite expertly and Doug neatly emptied the tire.  The tube was installed (the slit was small enough a boot wasn't needed) and aired up (using co2), tire replaced on the bike and we were off.

Due to the time it took on these flats, we decided to skip tacos and go straight back to the shop.   I may be too old to go with tubeless tires and through-axel hydraulic brakes.

2024 USAC State Time Trial Championship

Watching this time trial in Hempstead is boring.  You get to see the start, watching until your rider is down the road.  You get to see the finish, watching the approach and the finish.  In my case, there was thirty-seven minutes of blank time.  My actual time was 37:24.  Riding a time trial is pretty boring also.  There are no tactics, you just go as hard as you can for as long as you can.  There is some strategy in monitoring road surface, elevation changes, and wind direction in order to change to a faster gear.  It's not like you are comatose.  This is a two lane road open to traffic, what little there is, so you need to heed vehicles and hope that they are respectful of your presence. 

The guys in my age category who are faster than I did not show up.  Likewise the guys who might make me work hard but I'm usually faster didn't show up.  As I have done is some of my previous races, I finished first and last.  The only thing I'm reporting is some stats and observations.

I had a tail wind going out and mostly in my face coming back.  It took seventeen minutes and change to hit the turn-around, thus the return was twenty minutes plus.  I averaged 20.2mph.  It took me a whole minute to bring it up to cruising speed.  I took my time because there was no competition plus we were doing the team time trial in the afternoon.  Mostly I kept it in the 23mph range, getting up to 27mph on the one slight downhill.  Mostly in the 18mph range on the way back, with 16mph on the uphill.  It took almost a mile to bring my HR up to 140 (current max is 156) and I kept it between 90-95%  (average 143) the whole way up to the very end when I hit 153.  

Five years ago I was five minutes faster, kept the HR five beats higher, and average power 50 watts higher.  It is now incumbent upon me to find fifty watts.  True, five years ago I had a head wind going out and a tail wind coming back, so maybe I haven't lost that much speed.  I also had competition, so I pushed a little harder.

The other thing that bothered me was how my triceps fatigued so quickly.  In practice, I go for an hour with very little time out of the tuck and the arms were fine.  I did see in one of the photos my grandniece took, that I was on the rivet and my shoulders were too far forward.  Anyhow, because of the fatigue, I came out of the tuck more than I should have to give the arms a break.

We did have one celebrity race with us: EF rider Neilson Powless.  Marilane was working registration but missed recognizing him at first.  So when she had a break, went over to chat and get a picture.

Oh yeah, the team time trial: One of us broke a brake cable and was unable to compete.  We couldn't start with two riders, so we scratched.  We might have tried something, but once again, there were no riders in our category and we all have enough medals we didn't see the need to get another.